Database management systems, implemented on general purpose programmable digital computing equipment, for the logical storage, retrieval and processing of related data types, are well known in the prior art. In general, users of these systems who wish to retrieve data stored therein require not only access to computers, but the necessary technical expertise with the database systems implemented thereon to effect the data retrieval. One application area for database technology is the field of sales support.
Database management systems configured to support sales efforts (hereinafter, sales support systems) enable a user to access information regarding the items being sold. This information could include information regarding the items being sold, inventory, cost, availability, deliverability, and in the case of real estate, location of the property for sale. A sales support system organizes the individual data elements by fields as records in a database. The user specifies his or her needs and the system retrieves data from the database, preparing a sorted list according to the user's specifications. Where a sales support system has been configured to provide sales support for real estate brokers, those user specifications could include locality or area, price, number of bedrooms and so forth. By utilizing such a system, brokers save considerable amount of time in matching listed properties with a buyer's needs.
One useful adjunct of sales support systems for real estate sales support is the provision of maps to the seller's location. A map can be a valuable sales tool and is particularly useful to sellers of real estate in that it makes locating properties easier. Providing one map reference for one property is not a particularly difficult or time consuming task. When a broker or other wishes to prepare a list of several properties for consideration however, looking up map references for ten or more such properties, and then making photocopies of each, is less trivial. To this end, automated map generation has been the subject of efforts by several workers.
Typically, automated map systems will provide a map taken from a database of maps for a given location. To match the requested location with the correct map, or portion of a map, some kind of geocoding system is used, most often based on latitude and longitude. Again, users of automated map generation systems require knowledge of the system, a computer and, if printed output is desired, a connected printer. To produce a map for a given location, the location's latitude and longitude (or other geocoding input) are entered, and a map produced for that location. A system which would input a list of locations and extract from the map system a map or series of maps for these locations would provide real estate sellers with a powerful sales tool at minimal expense of effort. To be truly useful, however, maps provided by the system should have several characteristics not found in the map systems currently available.
Detail maps often do not adequately depict a listed property's location with respect to known landmarks in a given area: major highways, waterways, shorelines, etc. Area maps which would show these references often will not show sufficient detail to enable a user to locate a property, yet may not adequately depict the area's location within the city. A general map lacks almost all detail but shows the location of a particular area within, for instance, a city. A series of maps in decreasing scale would enable a user to visualize the location of a property within a city, to locate the area within which the offered property is found, and finally to locate the specific property. This implies a series of three maps: a general map of small scale to show a very large area; an area map of medium scale to depict a smaller area and finally a detail map of very large scale to show a small area in great detail.
A common fault of automated map systems currently available is that a map produced therewith for a given location often depicts that location at the map boundary. A map with a listed property shown at one edge or in a corner of the map has limited utility. Maps presented to the user which "center" the location of the property or other point of interest on the map produced would maximize the utility of those maps. Furthermore, assuming the user is provided with a series of maps of varying scale as discussed above, the location of the detail maps should be centered on the area maps, and the location of the area maps should be centered on the general maps. In this manner, the user is given the most useful presentation of map data.
To maintain a dynamic database of listed real estate properties, properties need to be removed when sold or otherwise removed from the market and added when they come on the market. In order to create a map which will accurately depict newly listed properties, each property in the database must contain geocode references for a mapping system to refer to. Manually geocoding each new property as it is listed would be a significant effort; absent a large expenditure of man-hours it cannot be timely done for the large pool of available properties typically found in even medium sized cities. An automated geocoding process which takes advantage of geocode references inherent in an available mapping system would solve the problem, if those geocode references are accurate and up to date. Geocode references in available automated mapping systems are constantly changing to reflect changes to the areas they map; furthermore, these systems almost always have inherent errors or inaccuracies. A purely automated process to provide geocode references for a large number of newly listed properties is not, therefore, predestined for success. An automated process, capable of manual intervention to resolve errors, would enable a database manager to geocode the greatest number of properties by maximizing the utility of the geocoding capability of existing mapping systems, while minimizing the impact of those errors.
In presenting data to a database user, it is often desirable to present that information, in whatever form it is ultimately extracted from the database, in printed format. In a typical real estate office, this presents no particular difficulty in that such offices typically have one or more computers or even a network of computers accessible to users. Moreover, in an office environment, users of such systems tend to have experience, even expertise, in their use. In the case where the user is not in an office, does not have access to such equipment, or is not trained in the use of computers, getting printed information from a database presents a significant challenge. If a means could be found, absent the aforementioned equipment and training, to sort through a database of listed properties to find only those which meet a potential buyer's needs, and then print corresponding maps to enable that buyer to find those properties, a significant sales support opportunity could be realized.
A potential solution to the equipment dilemma exists in that facsimile (fax) equipment is becoming increasingly common both in the workplace as well as in the home office. By transmitting printed data to an end user's fax machine, that machine can function as a remote printer for the computer.
Using a facsimile machine to receive printed output from remote storage locations has been the subject of efforts by several workers. U.S. Pat. No. 4,918,722 to Duehren et al. teaches a method for storing at one location messages, receiving at the first location commands via telephone lines from a second location which select one of the stored messages, fetching the selected message responsive to the commands, calling the second location and sending the selected message to that location via facsimile equipment.
This goal of delivering one or more of a plurality of prerecorded messages to a remote user via facsimile equipment has been addressed by several others and is the subject of U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,068,888 to Scherk et al; 5,072,309 to Brown; 5,136,634 to Rae et al.; 5,153,744 to Nobuta; and 5,196,943 to Hersee et al.
Each of these referenced patents shares, to an extent, a common goal: the retrieval of selected documents, or in one case images, from a database. Each of the preceding references provides a means to allow a user to access an existing file and transmit that file to the user via facsimile means. In this manner, each of these inventions enables a remote user to access a database on a host computer and select from the database a file or record to receive via facsimile machine. While these devices have utility, a system which would enable a user to cause a database system to specifically create a document from data stored in the database and responsive to the user's needs, and then transmit that document to the user via facsimile equipment, would have significantly greater usefulness. In the case of the real estate sales support system example, such a system would enable a remote user to access the database, specify the user's requirements to the system, effectively sort the records from the database into a file which is subsequently used to create a map specific to the user's needs and send the resultant document thus created to the user's facsimile machine.
Generally speaking, a methodology is needed which would allow an individual to access a database using nothing more sophisticated than a telephone, direct queries to that database which result not in the transmission of a "canned" or pre-defined message but in a document created and formatted suitable to his specific needs, and have that document transmitted to a facsimile receiving unit to which he has access. Such a methodology would enable much of the inherent power of database technology to be made available to essentially naive users without their need for computational resources.
If such a system were available it would allow a user to call a specifically configured computer, using dual tone multi-frequency (DTMF or touch tone) telephone equipment, and request of the system a listing of, for instance, real estate property listings in a given area. The system would respond with a dynamically created document, specific to the user's needs, and could include not only a simple listing of properties, but other information useful in real estate sales. In this embodiment, the system could also provide a series of locator maps to assist the user in locating listed properties. In tailoring such a document to a user's needs, input from the user such as area desired, target price and number of bedrooms could be input using DTMF signals responsive to voice prompts from the system.